Bang the Doldrums
by electric-water-chestnut
Summary: A story about a drumline. And the rest of the marching band. And all the interpersonal relationship crap that comes with that.
1. Chapter 1

Just something random I started writing the other day. I'd like to say that I'll add more, but knowing how undedicated I am, that might very well never happen. Oh well.

Enjoy...

* * *

"Who are they?" I picked up the voice of a townie in the bleachers from where I stood. Straigh, at attention. Head focused forward. Not an inch to the left or right. 

"I dunno. Not from around here. A big city band, I guess." That was true. We weren't from around here. Thank God. I don't know if I would be able to contiue living if I found myself to someday be from a place like Alamance county. Hicks.

"Lookit those uniforms. Their white pants are real bright. It musta gost them a big dollar to get thost cleaned. I think they look snazzy."

"Snazzy? They're jackets are purple. See those big ones there? They look like Barney." Did they think we couldn't here them? If I could listen in, then I knew that Harold in front of me could as well. The junior wasn't exactly what one would call small. A heck of a trumpeter, though.

"Hahah. That's funny. Look, Norma-Jean. It's a whole band of Barneys." Cackles of Norma-Jean and the two nitwits filled the air. Hicks.

Why does our band director insist on taking us to the competitions out in the middle of god-foresaken-nowhere? We're from a larger city. The capital city of our state. There were so many high schools around us that we could easily spend each weekend of the season competing without crossing the county line, and still be totally content.

"They've got bunches of drums, too. They're all perty and white. I bet they must polish those things. They even gots people who hold cymbals. Those are real shiny suckers, too." Dimwit #1 spoke.

"Hey Norma-Jean. Doesn't Tommy want to play the drums? Maybe you should go down there and let him beat on one. The bands just standing there. They ain't got nothing better to do?" Words cannot describe the stupidity of the above statement.

"I dunno... Would we be allowed to do that?" No. You would not.

"If you're gonna be all scared about it, then I'll take him. Come on Tommy. Let's go hit a drum!"

"He's not actually doing this, is he?" My snare drummer, who was standing to my left said through gritted teeth. A sentiment I was sure the entire battery was echoing at this very moment.

The two dismounted the bleachers and entered onto the track. They began to walk towards the drums. "I fear so." I replied back to Randy.

Tommy laid sight on the drummers, and for a moment was frozen with shock. Then. "Oooohh, cymbals," He cried and charged through the line of band members till he was standing before me. He cautiously extended his index finger and poked my left plate. It dinged lightly in response. The boys dimwitted chaperone was still yards away, and making no visible effort to hurridly collect his young. "Cymbal go crash!" He grabbed both my right and left cymbal and shoved the two together. I cannot think of one self-respecting percussionist who would not have winced at the resulting noise. Before I could react, he was gone, leaving my plates haning in front of my body, ringing.

He had found the big prize. "Drum!" He stood before our center snare. Lance is an intimdating senior. At least, he scared the crap out of me during our first drumline audition back in April. With a height over 6'3 and a weight to match, he was one scary-ass dude. Barney uniform or no Barney uniform. I guess I gotta give that kid Tommy credit for going up to him of all people. A five year old has to have guts to pull that crap. Or stupidity. Tommy probably possed the latter of the two.

"Wanna hit the drum?" Dimwit had caught up with the rascal and the two now stood before Lance. Even as dimwit raised the boy up to the level so that he could reach the snare, I could forsee how much of a mistake this would be.

"This is gonna be bad." Randy could as well.

Dimwit grabbed a stick from Lance's bag and placed it into the boy's hand. Lance remained motionless. Tommy examined the stick in awe before grasping it as he believed a drummer should. Lance remained motionless. Tommy mocked hitting an invisible object in the air with the stick. Lance remained motionless. Tommy raised the stick till it was almost vertical above the drumhead. Lance remained motionless.

DAT.

Time seemed to freeze as the sound from that one drum tap carried throughout the field we were currently waiting to enter. The entire band heard it. I could almost see the need of the wind players ahead of us to turn and see what had caused the renegade note. They didn't, of course.

If there was anything you didnt' do whilst standing at attention as a member of our band, it was voluntarily move your body for any reason short of projectile-vomiting. Thus why none of us had moved a muscle as Tommy and Dimwit meandered their way through the band. Idiots tended to have a way of serving themselves their just deserts.

A whistle then sounded. A piercing trill drawn out for several counts, then five short tweets. Finally. Time had come to take the field for competition. Our band director's whistle signaled for us to start our main cadence.

In one swift motion, Lance sprung to life. He seized the remaining pair of drumsticks from his bag. The rest of our line quickly followed suit.

"Drums ten hut!" That boy's voice sure could carry.

"DUT!" The battery screamed as one.

Lance's four count tap off seemed to be especially loud. Perhaps the fact he had modified the accented strokes to rimshots on a spur of the moment decision had something to do with it.

Dimwit with mini-Dim in tow had begun to make their way from the track even before we began to actually move and play. Smart decision. Hate to see what a bass drummer who could always fall back on the 'couldn't see them' excuse would do to the hick.

To say that I purposely crashed the heck out of my plates as the two passed me on their way back to the stands wouldn't be telling a lie. Sure, I lost a bit in technique. It was worth it though, to see the classic too-loud pose of hands over ears. Gotta love playing the hands-down loudest instrument in the band.

As we continued to march, the words of our band director filtered through my head. It was a sentiment he had expressed many times, while standing at the front of the band room, addressing us as we arched up for warm-ups, or as he paced our practice field. We were who we were. And people know about us. Because of that, they're going to take pot-shots at us. They're going to make stupid comments. We've just got to not let any of that effect us and remember that every time we don that uniform or pick up those drums, we're representing something greater than just ourselves.

The announcer that night phrased it best with those classic words, amplified for all within miles to hear.

"On the field from Raleigh, North Carolina, the Kildron B, Bartius High School Marching Royals!


	2. Da Lot

Yay. I managed to write some more. Happy times indeed. Halfway through this, I realized just how heavily I was focusing on the drumline. That'll probably be the trend, just as that's what I know. I'm sure you wind people would be wincing nonstop if I decided to do something about involving various marching reed sizes or breathing and attacks and whatnot, so I'll try to avoid such. Unless I decided to make myself look stupid. Which might happen. Never know.

No, drumlines don't really have battles in parking lots after awards ceremonies at competition in North Carolina. At least the ones I've been to don't, anyway. But we totally should, just because the premise sounds so fun.

Anyway, on with the writing...

* * *

"Hey drummers, meet over here for a quick talk if you please." Lance called to us as our band filed off the bleachers. The award ceremony had just finished. We scored... well, we could have done better. Much better. I'll leave it at that for now.

"You are aware that we'd all have to come over here anyway to get our stuff." I pointed out. I normally wasn't one to speak out, subscribing to the don't annoy the upperclassmen, and they'll act somewhat decent to the frosh theory. I guess the competition, or the fact that after all these weeks I was finally beginning to feel like a true part of the line, or something gave me mounds of confidence.

Or at least sparked enough courage to talk back to the all-around-big buzz-cut I''ve-already-enlisted-in-the-armed-forces senior that was our center snare.

"What do you know, you're just a freshmen." He retorted back after a few seconds. Oooh. Big senior doesn't like small freshmen talking back to him.

"Dude. You know she is right though," Came the voice of Gabe, our tenor sub-section leader. I turned to see him resting, drums on, against the chain link fence that bordered the field. "You don't have to act like you're leading a bunch of elementary schoolers around. We do have brains, after all."

"Debateable." A comment from Vincent, a junior snare. A fact that is sadly true.

Once the snickers had resided, Gabe began to speak again. "I can't tell you once in my four years of marching that we haven't met as a section after awards. Why would it change now? I know in theory you're the commander and we're all your troops following your every command, but still, lighten up a bit. This is just high school."

A few seconds passed as the senior's commentary sunk in. While some of the bitterness could be attributed to the average senior vs. senior competition/angst some drumlines seemed to be plauged with (ours was no exception), there was no escaping the fact that Gabe had a valid point. Lance did tend to treat us as though we had yet to develop the capability of thinking for ourselves. And it did get annoying.

"Yeah, really. Just because you've already signed you're life away to the government doesn't mean we have to surrender our youth as well." That came from our bass 4, Rex. While perhaps Rex and Lance might get along fine if it was just their personalities that each had to consider, the whole military thing threw a major wrench in such plans. Rex was majorly against the war, against the president, against pretty much anything others would deem patriotic. With a passion. You can imagine the tension those views caused between the two boys.

Awkward silence. Awkward silence. Awkward silence.

Only to be broken by the wonderfuly loud squeaking of one of our tenors, Yolanda, lowering her drums. You know the sound.

The line dissolved into laughter from the sheer randomness of the moment. I believe it was only half in actual response to the surprising squeak and half in relief of that terribly awkward moment having fallen by the wayside. Either way, it felt good.

"So... who's ready to go see who wants to battle?" Lance.

"I believe you mean: so... who's ready to go kick some other drumline's asses?"

Gabe's comment was met by a rally of enthusiastic cries and cheers. Anyone who hadn't done so already scrambled to put on their equiptment, and off we went.

To the wonderful oasis known as the parking lot. Aka. da lot.

Da lot is a bit of a tradition at most of the competitions our school tended to frequent. And even if it wasn't, odds were that by the time our busses pulled out of the lot, it was a new-founded one. The premise was simple. Since us drumlines couldn't do any type of cool exhibition lot warming up ala, DCI/WGI before our preformances for whatever the reason, we had decided that the next logical time to have such an event would be after the awards. Lines could strut their stuff. Winners show off why they won, losers show off why they were robbed. You know, play your cadences, your groove warm-ups, all that jazz. For those twenty or so minutes you got before your BD said enough was enough, your line was the shizz.

That's not even mentioning the drum battles. You know the concept. Line A approaches Line B. Drum captains do their thing. Line A plays cadence/whatever challenging Line B. Line B retaliates with cadence/whatever of their own. If deemed necessary, the battle goes on. And on. And on.

Fun crap.

Our line lived for these battles. We spent extra hours of practice going over various routines. In the off season, anyone who was anyone, wrote at least a few good pages worth of scores that they thought could be used for lot battles. We collaborated in the summer to choose which we would actually rehearse, but that's a whole 'nother story in itself. We would practice in front of others any chance we got - football games, pep rallys, for the few wayward trumpets who would rather wander around by the drumline during sectionals than actually play with their section. While we might not score first out on the field, if we could show up one other line by playing some sweet lick then it would all be worth it. The thought of going out there and kicking tail exciting our line so much that for those few moments we actually forgot our differences and seriously and truly played as one.

I could feel that excitement twirling around the mid-October night's air, mixed with just a bit of anticipation and nerves. The feelings combined formed a cocktail whose taste I had already become addicted to, despite my limited expierence in da lot. Only one time prior, at my first competition.

We were in line in step in our chevron, or whatever you would call the figure we formed to accompany our twenty-one member battery, as we approched our first predesignated chalengee. As we drew closer, Lance began to tap out a beat. First in time with our feet as quarter notes, then eights, then sixteenths, then finally thirty-secondths. Each other drummer then joined in. Basses on unison with 32nds, and all others pounding out the notes in time with our captain. Cymbals split sixteenth crashes. The whole thing wasn't awesomly clean, but that wasn't really the goal with our mad ramming of notes. We just wanted to create as much noise as possible while scaring the crap out of whoever we were advancing upon.

I suppose it worked, as as we drew nearer and nearer to the opposing line, it seemed almost as though they began to take a few steps backwards. I even caught a few of them placing their hands close to thier ears in what looked like a concealed attempt to shield thier ear drums from the massive amount of sound we were creating.

Then, as we reached the point where we could even read the word SOUTH emblazoned on the front of their uniforms, I heard Lance give the cuttoff signal. Four rimshots, each a quarter note appart. One count after the fourth rimshot we appruptbly cut the noise.

"DUT!" Was the single cry that we let fly into the air. That was the unquestionable sign that the Bartius High School drumline had arrived.

Still standing tall at attention, Lance advanced forward towards the snare player who I assumed was the opposing line's drum captain. The two's drums weren't but a foot from each other when he stopped. Seconds passed as the two sized each other up. I took the oppritunity to size up the other line.

We were challenging a high school from the southern part of the county we were competing in now. Their band was in the division below ours, but their percussion section was quite large. Better known plainly as South, the high school had become known over the years for at least having an awesome tech with top-level drum corps expirence. When a rural high school band could boast that on their resume, it was assumed that they were good. Which they were. At least according to the judges we had just faced. They'd won high drums in their division.

"I, drum captain Lance Bennet of the Bartius High School Drumline, challenge you, the South High School Drumline." With his booming voice and imposing stare, there were a few perks to having a military man as your drum captian.

"I, drum captian Bert Renfield of the South High School Drumline, accept your challenge," He turned back to face his line. "What're you waiting for? Put 'em on and let's do this."

They stacked up pretty well. Two cymbals, four snares, three tenors, and five basses. We were larger, though. Six cymbals, six snares, four tenors, and five basses. The biggest line our school has ever had. We would also like to think that whenever we really got in the zone and played together, one of the best lines our school has ever had as well. Sadly, we just never seemed to totally jell together during times that weren't practices or in da lot, ie; competions.

Our first score was written to totally fool our opposing line into thinking that we were a whole lot more medicore than we actually were. It started out at an incredebly slow tempo. Snares did some sixteenth note accent patterns, tenors did sixteenth stuff as well between the drums, basses made a huge deal out of splitting eights and some sixteenths, and the plate line played lots of unison crashes and hi-hat chicks. After a few measures of this, any band that hadn't seen our routine before was sold on the idea that we were nothing but a big line that could barely play cleanly.

We then went into a cymbal ride part with the snares playing in the bell of the cymbal. This continued for a measure or two before Randy abbruptly stopped playing and dampened my cymbal with his hand. The others snares shot him questioning looks while there own playing began slowing to a stop. Some great staged facial expressions were passed between Randy and Lance.

"Oookay then..." Lance said slowly as he raised his sticks. Immediately the plate line ran back to our spot beside the tenors. We reached it just in time for the new rim-shot tap-off. This was about fifty BPM faster than what we had been playing at prior. Here was where we really showed off what the BHS drumline could do.

The bass drums were splitting atoms - sixteenths and thirty-seconds were running up and down that line. Tenors incorporated some awesome scrapes and crossovers into their music for added visual effect. Snares were all about ramming, playing crazy hybrid rudiments left and right. Even the cymbal line got in on the act. We got some good eighth and even sixteenth note splits in, really utilizing a range of different sound techniques.

While it may sound as though what we played was nothing more than random notes throw together with a common beat, it did fit together. The music locked, and not to sound concieted or anything, but dang - we were hot!

What would South play to match what we had just served up? The curiosity was high. We watched as the drum captian and second bass - no doubt a fellow senior - exchanged glances. A few mouthed words, distored to us by the darkness of the night, and some gestures with drumsticks later, the center snare seemed to have reached the decision as to what to play.

He pulled his sticks out and began a complicated solo tap-off. It sounded as though he could very well be playing nothing more than whatever the line was preparing to play, but at an extremely fast speed. He slowed to quarters to set the tempo, and the rest of the line began to mark time.

"SOUTH!" Shouted by bass 1.

"HIGH!" Bass 2.

"SCHOOL!" Bass 3.

"DRUM!" Bass 4.

"LINE!" Bass 5.

"GO!" The center snare, Bert if I remember correctly, began to yell. But before he could even get the full sylabull from his mouth, a renegade pair of hands reached from behind him and clamped tightly over his clapper. Bert looked deeply distressed for a moment or two before the controller of the hands emerged from behind the snare line. A tall and somewhat plump girl with average features who looked to be about his age.

"Hey honey," She drawled in a southern accent. At this time, all semblances of playing that the South drumline had once been exhibiting were now gone. From the expressions on the other member's faces, it seemed as though intrusions from this woman were not terribly uncommon. "What's going all with y'all?"

"We're just about to return this drumline's challenge. They sound might good." He pointed a stick to us.

The teen regarded us for a moment before a look of excitement crossed her face. "Oh my sweet-Jesus, that's the Barney band!"

God. The companion of that terribly annoying townie was actually involved in a relationship with the captain of the South drumline? And she would have to show up during our battle, as well.

I exchanged glances with the cymbalists beside me. It was easy to tell that they couldn't quite believe it, either.

At least we'd get a good chance to show off in front of her. Show her that Barney playing percussion could be a forced to be reconded with. And after all, it's not like our drumline's favorite spectator was around.

"What now, Norma-Jean? Did you just say that Barney band is over here?" That voice. It couldnt' be. But it was. Seconds later, who else but Dimwit emerged into the center of our drum circle. Tommy was with him. Of course.

"Now Tommy, how 'bout you show that big drummer boy what you learned while you was practicing with you coke glass straws?" Dimwit said to the boy. He drew a pair of sticks from Lance's bag, and handed them to Tommy. I couldn't believe this was happening again. But this time there was no order to remain at attention to restrain us.

I could feel in the rest of the line as well as myself the readiness to move in on and remove the two. We were only waiting for our drum captian to give the signal. Yet Lance made no such gesture. He only stood still as a stone as Tommy walked up to his drum. The boy raised the sticks. Still no movement. Lance must have something special planned for this, I thought.

Suddenly, Tommy began to play note after note on Lance's drum. Each more loud and painfull to listen to than the last. This continued for a few seconds, until Tommy ended his drumming spasm with a few rimshots. Rimshots from a good eight inches above the drum, at the top of the youth's reach. Right into the drummer's face.

Lance just smiled. Then began to laugh. Hysterically so. Uh-oh.


	3. Wind Interlude

My feeble attempt to shake up the whole formula a bit. Give you a chance to get to know some of the other fictional members of the band. They've got high school drama going on in their lives as well. Doesn't that deserve attention as well. After all, it shouldn't be _all_ about the drummers. Just mostly so.

* * *

Wind Interlude 

"How did that go for you?" Janet asked her friend, Grenda. The two girls were currently crowded onto their assigned band bus along with fifteen or so of their closest female friends. They were changing out of their bulky wool uniforms back into items of clothing that were semi-comfortable to wear. The boys had the honor of doing this changing outside, in the cold and dark night, just to give their female counterparts some privacy. The phrase 'real men change outside' were words to live by in the Bartius High School Marching Band.

"I dunno about you guys, but I think I coulda done a bit better. The only time I was really in step was during the pods." Interjected Hunter, a freshmen trumpeter who if votes were cast would undoubtebly be recipent of the title 'Most annoying person. Ever.' It was also a matter of intrest to note that Hunter was not a girl. Nor was he a real man.

"Hold on. Did he just say that the only time he _was_ in step was during the pods?" A sophomore piccoloist a few rows back called to the front. "The only time?"

"Yup."

"Sadly so." The two replies came in unison. Hunter's voice had a borderline amount of pride hidden in its tone. Janet's did not. She, dispite her frosh status, fully recognized just how pathetic it was to say that there were less than thirty measures that she could be certain she was in step while marching.

"Oh, Hunter. We really are going to have to sacrifice you to the trumpet gods." Said Libby, one of the most talented trumpeters BHS boasted on this years roster. She jokingly tossed her white pants onto Hunter's head, causing the freshmen to scream in disgust for a few moments, before grabbing them back and continuing on with her journey to the front of the bus. Pants had to be turned in to the uniform parents for dry cleaning after each competition/parade/whatnot.

It took a few full minutes for the laughter aboard the bus to subside to the point where spoken words could be audible again.

"Hunter... you were kidding, right?" Grenda started cautiously. "You can't be serious. We didn't spend all that time in rehersal and band camp and everything, just to have you totally fail to stay in step."

A quiet fell over the bus. Anticipation for the boy's answer filled the air.

"I'm not kidding around. I'm totally serious. I swear on my momma's momma." Hunter drawled in his strong southern accent. This time it was fully evident. There definetly was pride in his voice.

"Oh god." Was all Grenda could manage.

"This is a total facepalm moment." Janet said. She slowly preformed the gesture even as she spoke the words.

Giggles and the chatter of various conversations once again filled the air as the girls continued to change back and venture off the bus in search of food and further socialization. Yet each band member was sure to stop in the aisle beside Hunter and preforme the facepalm gesture slowly, much to his gradual annoyance and everyone else's amusement.

The boy just couldn't win. Not that he'd actually want to. Losing was much more fun, after all.

...One bus over...

"Everyone decent?" Evan called. Without waiting for an answer, he proceeded to dart up the stairs of the bus.

A few of the freshmen reacted with squeals of shock. A boy on the bus during changing time - omg! Not that any of them were even halfway close to being naked.

"Don't mind Evan. He just doesn't get enough gratification from the porn on his computer, so he needs to come look at our beatiful bodies each competition." Explained Wessley. Wessley was a fellow junior and trombone player. She and Evan had known each other since the first day of middle school band. They'd naturally become friends over the years. As well as a bit more at times, but those were past memories. They'd both since moved on.

"Hahaha." He pronounced clearly. "You know that's why I'm here Wessley. Just for you." Not that Wessly was an ugly girl or anything. If she bothered to clean herself up and dress like a female, the trombonist didn't look half bad.

"As much as I'd love to flatter myself, I know why you're really here. April's in the back." She pointed down the aisle. Evan and April had hooked during the summer, and as soon as band camp started the two had claimed their place in band couple imfamy.

"Y'all are such a cute couple." Crooned one freshmen as he passed. From the look she gave him, it didn't seem to be a stretch of the imagination to believe that that girl had spent a few boring class periods invisioning herself as part of said cute couple. Evan wasn't exactly what you'd all an ugly boy, either. He had the whole football player thing going for him. Still, the thought that little ninth graders had the hots for him creeped him out. Who knew what they whispered about him and the other upperclassmen boys during their English 1 classes.

"Oh, and Evan." He turned back to see Wessley standing in the aisle facing his direction. "Put a shirt on!" She tossed the white t-shirt she had been wearing underneath her uniform at the boy. It landed on his face. The familiar smell of Wessley's sweat and whatever perfume she never left home without wearing filled his nasal glands. It smelled good. A bit too good. He quickly yanked the cloth from his head.

"Once again, hahaha." He threw the shirt back and continued walking towards the back of the bus. He enjoyed walking around without a shirt on. As he was doing at this very moment. Was it his fault that he had a good enough body to do so? After all, since the humid October night was conductive to wearing cargo shorts only, and it would only feel this way for a weekend or two more at the max, why not take advantage of what you have?

There she was. Sitting quietly in up against the window. Back row of the bus. Still in full guard garb, complete with her bright red lipstick, form-fitting outfit, and long brown hair pulled back in a tight bun. Anyone who didn't know better would say that the girl was just being antisocial. Or perhaps she was tired. But Evan knew the truth. She was waitng for him.

And to say that knowing that a person would sit and wait for you like that wasn't a boost to the ego, would be a total lie.

"You know, April. That guard uniform really does show every little detail of your body." Evan crooned softly. He sunk into the cushioned charter bus seat while glancing up at the colorguard girl's face. His girlfriend of five months initally bristled at his comment. He expected her to do such. She was such a typical girl. So self-concious over her apperance.

"And it shows me just how sexy that all is." He traced a finger along the emroiderment of the body stocking she was currently dressed in. Up her washboard-flat stomach to her wonderfully plump breasts. Her precious collar bone. And of course, the girl's face. The feature that he initially fell for all those months ago when his JV football team was lucky enough to glance a preview of the JV cheerleader's squad for the upcomming season.

"Yeah right. You're just saying that because you're obligated to." April glanced away from herself as she said it. As though even the sight of her body disgusted her.

Evan sighed inwardly. The girl couldn't even take a genuine compliment at face value. What would it take to get his girlfriend to accept the fact that she might actually be the least bit attractive? Perhaps he should enlighten April on the threats given to him by her ex, a hefty snare player, once he saw that Evan had expressed intrest in her? Or not. The football jock wasn't quite that stupid.

"Listen baby. If I didn't love what I saw before me, then why would I still remain obligated to say that I did?" A valid point, if he did say so himself. "You think about this crap way too much. I think you're beautiful just the way you are."

And with that, he ensured that April would be a bit too busy using her mouth for other purposes to rebuke his compliments again.

Tastes of lipstick and sweat - yummy.

...Outside...

"Wanna bet how many cookies I can fit in my mouth at once?" Brian held up the mound of baked goods he had just picked from the band booster's buffet table. With the end of any compeition came a wonderful ritual known as 'cookie time.' Pastries, cookies, and cakes were plentiful and delicious enough to tempt even the teenage girl on the strictest diet. For a boy of slightly plump stature such as Brian, it was heaven. Pure and simple.

"Wanna bet how long it'll take the EMTs to come all the way out here to Hicksville High School?" Asked his longtime friend, Alexis. She smiled widely at Brian. Hearing the laughter from their group of friends encouraged her to continue. "While we're at it, how about we bet on how much our loving band director will be sued by your parents when they find out you're comming back from this competition in a body bag?"

"Oooh. Touche." He saluted the girl with a chocolate chunk cookie before taking a gargantuan bite. Those band moms sure could make a mean cookie.

Alexis laughed again before turning to make a comment to another member of their little circle. Brian continued to chomp on the cookie while tuning out whatever little conversation the others were having. While there was a certain amount of pleasue he could derive from the chocolately taste sensations of what he was currently consuming, it paled in comparison to the feeling that ran through his entire body upon glancing at Alexis. Her long brown hair. Short but slim figure. Great body - with legs muscles from soccer and arm muscles from toting around her marching baritone. She was nothing but stunning in his eyes.

Too bad he was just the fat kid. Forever doomed to live the cliched movie plot-line role of best friend. The one to give romantic advice, but never recieve. Much less be the subject of said romantic advice. The one who the girl would proffess to be best friends with. The one who the girl would collaspe into uncontrollable laughter at the thought of becomming anything more than just friends with. She loved his personality. Why else would she spend so much time with him? Why couldn't that alone be enough?

Stupid superficial society and their stupid superficial ideals implanted into media outlets to broadcast to all of the world.

...Then...

"Guys, guys, you won't believe this!" Matt Fox, a senior sax player who over the past four years had developed quite a reputation for getting into any type of trouble possible, cried. He approached the most of the band, which was congregated around the cookie table at a run. He came from the direction of the stadium and most of the other band's busses.

"You totally won't believe this." He said again upon comming to a stop. It had to be big news. You could tell from the solitary street light's reflection upon Matt's face that it was. The only other time the boy looked this giddy was before/after/during the playing of a prank on someone, ie; our band director.

"...and that is..." A random band member tried to hurry along the boy.

"It's that," He paused. "The drumline got into this huge fight!"

Murmmers of shock passed through the crowd. It wasn't exactly a tight-lipped secret that the members of the battery didnt' exactly get along on the best of terms at times, but to actually get into a full-blown fight? Noone had expected that.

"Who's it between? I bet it's Lance verses another senior. Gabe perhaps?" Piped up someone once the initial buzz had quiteted.

"No, no. That's not what I mean." Matt looked as though he were about to wet his pants with excitement. "All twenty-whatever members of our drumline got into a fight with the members of another durmline."

Well, that made a bit more sense. But not by much.

"Why?" Comments were being thrown out at random from varying members of the band.

"I don't know, but it must've been something big. From the distance I saw a person who looked a lot like Lance wailing on some other dude. It didn't even look like the dude he was beating up was in uniform."

"Maybe it was the other band's percussion instructor?"

"Could be. It's a heck of a fight though. They're calling in campus police and everything." Matt reported.

"And you know who else they're going to be calling,,,,"

"Of course. I can't imagine that he isn't on the scene already. He is going to lose it once and for all with the drummers. I'd hate to be them right about now."

There was only one person within the Bartius High School band who Matt could be reffering to. The one who held all the power and made all the rules. The one who wasn't afraid to chew out a kid, and then would glady go after a parent calling to complain about their child's said chewing out. The one who with his decade's worth of expierence, had seen pretty much everything before. And thus knew how to handle it all. The one you didn't mess with. That was, if you had a brain. (A matter questionable in terms of drummers, but still...)

The band director. Mr. Allan K. Fredrickson. Or, as the rest of the world will forever know him as, AF.


	4. Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

So so so sorry for having not uploading anything in this long period of time. I guess it was just a mix of school stuff, holidays, and band trip fun. Woohoo. But all that ended on the fourth when we got back, so I'll try to keep my updating semi-regular. Enjoy!

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The world was chaos. Pure chaos. And I was caught in the middle of it all.

"You let him fucking touch my drum. You let him. You let him fucking play my drum. Twice!" In this chaotic arrangement of brawling band members, Lance took center stage. He was currently throttling Dimwit, raising the man a good foot or so into the air in the proccess.

"Apologize! Apologize!" Dimwit didn't seem to be offering up the apology our drum captain was asking him for. Not suprising, considering that his vocal chords were just a tad bit restricted at the moment.

My view of the main attraction was interrupted by a purple uniformed body flying past me. It was Dane. A hefty senior snare player. Whoever had managed to send him flying backwards like that must have the combined body mass of all five of our line's freshmen.

"You broke my stick! Oh, you are so going to pay for that!" Within moments Dane was back on his feet. In his left hand he brandished one vividly taped drumstick. (Our line tapes their sticks with purple and gold stick tape to represent our school colors.) I checked the ground. Sure enough, the stick's mate lie in two pieces.

"Bring it on!" I heard a voice call. With a tone that deep, it had to belong to whoever had challenged Dane. Wordlessly, the snare player charged back in the direction of the voice. He looked ready for battle.

Fitting considering the fact that this was a battle ground. Scanning around me, I could see several one-on-one tuffles in progress. Both sticks and punches were flying.

"Cymbals, watch my drum. I'm going in!" Called Kendra, one of our tenor players. The girl had already taken her drum off her harness. It lay just feet behind me out of the way of the main battle. She ran into the every-growing frenzy, mallets at the ready.

Our third bass and South's third were currently caught in a mad staring contest. Despite the fact that every few seconds a body crossed their line of vision, the two didn't dare revert their eye contact, even for just a second. That was, until Rex silently crept to the opposite side of South's bass. He took off his drum and harness and carefully placed them on the ground a few yards away. He snuck back beside the other bass with only his mallets in hand. Then;

"Diddle time!" With that rallying cry, Rex began to play rolls on the other basses' drum. He then switched to playing on the body of the drummer. Within the space of the few seconds that he had, he managed to work his way up to the point where he was playing on the head of South's drummer.

I stiffled a laugh.

The bass stood still for one moment longer before letting out an ear-splitting scream. I had no idea that a boy past puberty could reach such a pitch. He shook his body crazily as he did so. Moments later, Rex was on the ground, which was what you would imagine happening to a person who had just been hit by a flaling bass drum. The crazed drummer then ran away from the majority of the drummers. You could hear his squeals echoing in the distance as he left.

My laugh - no longer able to be surpressed - came forward as an all-out guffaw. Quite loudly. Apparently loud enough to garner the attention of quite a few of the fighters. While the members of my own drumline had long since accepted any certain quirks or eccentricities that I might posses, the South drummers had not yet been exposed to the bundle of oddness that was myself. Nor did they seem terribly happy about me. A shame, considering that my laughter seemed to be continuous. I just couldn't stop.

"Anything funny?" I turned around to find myself eye-level with the chest of a very large person. A very very large South High School person. Who did not come close to giving off the impression of being a happy camper.

"U...uh...umm..." Great response on my part. I now can personally testify though that there is nothing like being scared shitless to put an end to any and all laughing fits one might be expierencing at the time.

"The little girl doesn't seem to know. Maybe I should show her something to laugh at..." He made eye contact with me as he spoke those words. I felt a flash of pure horror jolt through my body. This dude was for real. He was seriously going to hurt me. Fuck. My eyes instinctively closed. I didn't want to watch. In the split second that followed, I found the notion that the first time I was ever to be beaten up was at a marching band compeition and that the beating was to be done by a fellow 'band geek' if you will, occupying my mind. Funny, in a way.

Contact would come any second now. I braced myself for the impact.

"What. The. Fuck. Do you think you're doing?" Huh? I was still concious. And free of pain. Something was up.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you? You don't hit a girl. Especially one so much smaller and younger than you." I opened my eyes to behold Randy standing between the goliath and myself. He had both hands grasped around the wrist of the South drummer and was obviously trying with all his might to hold back the boy's punch.

"You especially don't hit that girl if she's my cymbalist. I need her. Otherwise, I'd have to be the only snare playing on their rim, and we all know how uniform that would look." Aww. How sweet. Rescued by my knight-in-shining armour (snare drummer-in-purple-wool?). And who said chilvarly was dead?

"Randy. Don't do anything stupid now." I heard someone from our line warn from behind me. They did have a bit of a point. Randy didn't seem to be holding much power in his current position. The goliath didnt' seem to be faitgued in the least, yet my snare player was quickly tiring from holding back the mega-fist-of-pain. Randy shook his head defiantly upon hearing the comment, as though the fifty pound difference between the two boys could be overcome easily.

"If you want to hit anyone, at least pick on someone who plays you own instrument!" They were both snare drummers.

"Okay, okay. Dude, you're right," Goliath suddenly conceded. He withdrew his fist and showed both palms in the univsal gesture of innocence. "If I'm gonna hit anyone, it should totally be you."

With that he reared back and delievered a mighty punch straight to Randy's head.

Time slowed.

Randy was falling backward, straight into me. Behind us, the rest of our line seemed to channel a sense of anger, as a chorus of screams began to dwell in the air. Goliath moved forward still, with the obvious intention of totally taking out the smaller boy. Despite my powers of obvservation, I felt paralyzed to the spot. I wanted to close my eyes again, not wanting to wittness any part of what was about to take place, but my body was entirely frozen. It was going to happen regardless, and I was going to watch.

He made contact again. A crack louder than a rimshot flew was issued into the air. The sound of fist against skull. Someone was screaming quite loudly. Whether it was me or one of the many people behind me, I do not know. All I could remember from that moment was the silence comming from Randy. The boy was in too much pain to even speak, if not already unconcious from the force of the first hit.

At the exact same moment, I felt someone grasp onto my shoulders. Their grip was strong. With me taken by complete surprise, it was easy to pull me backward, out of the path of the falling snare player. With me no longer there to break his fall, Randy hit the pavement. Hard. His drum was actually jolted from the harness by the impact.

"Dude, get the fuck off her!" The hands upon my shoulders were jolted away just as suddenly as they had arrived. It was Lance. He then charged at the member of the South line, managing to catch up to the skinny snare player who had done the deed in mere seconds. Randy temporairly forgotten in the heat of the moment, I turned to find the other drumer sprawled on the ground, with Lance's bulky figure towering over him.

"Don't you ever, ever, ever, ever hurt a member of my line! Ever!" With each 'ever' he screamed, the drum captain lay another punch into his victim. "Because if you ever do, then I will personally hunt your little ass down and skin you myself!"

The fury in Lance's voice was unreal. He was channeling every bit of anger ammassed during the evening into this single brutal attack.

I had never seen anger quite like that ever before, nor do I believe I'll ever see such a display of emotion again. His rage managed to keep any members of the South line who might've otherwise moved to help their commerade at a distance.

Though the process took less than fifteen seconds, it felt as though the mercieless beating might never cease. And who knows how longit would have continued had a lean but muscular hand not grasped Lances arm, preventing him from punching.

"Lance, calm down. It's okay. Just relax. Calm down." AF spoke in a soothing voice as he addressed Lance. It worked. Lance's body seemed to relax as the words were spoken to him. I got the feeling that in his thirty-some years of expierence directing high school bands, or band director had needed to use this technique to calm teenage boys down more than once.

Once he saw that our drum captain had lost his feverent rage, AF turned his attention to the other, more urgent matter. "Heidi, run back to the stadium and them that medical attention is needed in the parking lot. They keep ambulences at band competitions just in case."

He didn't need to tell me twice. I turned and began to spring towards the football stadium. Less than a few yards away from the group, I caught a glance of my marching shoes in the glow cast by the streetlight. The freshly-polished white was now tarnished in spots by a bright red.

I ran faster.

It was only after I'd screamed out a practically incomprehensible command for help to the staff taking tickets in front of the bleachers that I realized just how I must look. A small fourteen year old girl wearing a bit-too-big uniform, once ironed and spotless, that was now wrinkled and sweat-stained from extertion. My shoulder-length black hair was hanging half in and half out of my ponytail, and the mascara I'd put on earlier that evening (Yes, I wear mascara to band competitions. A girl's got to look her best.) was running from either sweat or tears. Or both. I still had my cymbals as well. It had taken me till past the halfway point on my sprint to the stadium to realize that the metal plates were still hanging from my hands.

"Wonder what's up with her?" I overhead the voice of a young women talking to her spouse. After a quick glance in my direction, she shifted the conversation back to how they're son had preformed in this evening's show. He was apparently a drummer. They were both decked out in full South marching band gear. If only they knew...

I sensed that my job as messenger was complete after the ambulence raced past me from behind the field, sirens blaring. Nothing else was left for me to do except to return to the war zone that had been just half an hour earlier the site of a friendly drum battle.

To say that I wasn't afraid of what would greet me upon my arrival back would be a lie.


End file.
